From High School to the Future: Potholes on the Road to College. Case Studies (original) (raw)

2008, Consortium on Chicago School Research

In the late winter of 2005, CCSR researchers asked students in 12 junior English classrooms to join a longitudinal study of students' experiences in making the transition to college. In three neighborhood high schools, we recruited students from three IB classrooms, three AP classrooms, and six regular English classes. We told students they were the experts who could help us understand what works, what needs to be improved, and how to make Chicago high schools do a better job of supporting students as they made the transition to college or work. We told students that they would not get any benefits from participating, but we asked them to join us in helping Chicago schools become better for their younger brothers and sisters and for all students who would come after them. In a testament to the character of CPS students, more than 85 percent of the recruited students volunteered to join the study-so many that we could, unfortunately, not include them all. For three years, students gave up lunch breaks, talked to us about their experiences and plans, and allowed us to continue to follow them after they graduated. Their teachers allowed us to visit their classrooms, gave up free periods to be interviewed, and voluntarily filled out individual assessments of each student in our study. We are indebted to these students and teachers for the many hours of time they volunteered, as well as to the principals and staffs of the high schools in which we worked, who allowed this study to happen and supported it over two years. The students, teachers, and other school staff truly were the experts who guided our quantitative analysis and provided critical insights. In the end, we hope we have delivered on our promise to these students and have assembled their experiences and our analysis into a report that will assist CPS educators and policymakers in building effective systems that bridge the gap between students' college aspirations, their college access, and their college success. Along the way, many individuals have helped shape this report and make our work possible. In addition to the report authors, all of the members of our research staff have contributed to this report, from interviewing students and teachers to observing classrooms, to helping lay the groundwork for qualitative and quantitative analysis, to shaping our understanding through impromptu discussions. We would like to thank project researchers